Neighborly
I've had more interaction with my new next-door neighbor in the past couple weeks—hell, in the past ten minutes—than with all the residents of my old apartment complex (other than Loud Car Guy) combined over the course of six and a half years there.
Partly this is because I promised myself that I would actually talk to the neighbors at my new place. My natural tendency is to sit inside with the shades drawn and avoid all face-to-face interaction with people I don't know, but in theory I like the idea of neighborhoods and I like the idea of neighbors being, well, neighborly. At the old place, I always meant to go introduce myself to the people next door (whose bathroom shared a thin medicine-cabinet back wall with mine, so anything said in their bathroom was clearly audible in mine, and presumably vice versa) and upstairs (mostly to ask if I was making too much noise late at night, since the ceiling/floor apparently transmitted sound very easily), if nobody else, but I never got around to it.
Then, too, there are only five units in this condo complex, and the Homeowners Association consists of just the eight or nine of us residents, so it would be a lot harder to not meet and interact with the neighbors here than it was at the old place. At the old place there were about twenty apartments, but there was never any kind of event that required the residents to interact.
And at the old apartment, my schedule apparently didn't match anyone else's; there was almost never anyone around during the brief periods when I was outside. There were a couple of families with kids living in that complex, but I almost never saw or heard the kids. At the new place, it's not that my schedule matches anyone else's any better, but I do keep seeing various neighbors as I arrive or leave. I imagine that'll happen less often during the work week, though.
Anyway. I doubt I'll become close friends with any of the neighbors here. But I'm pleased to be meeting and interacting with them.
